American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA)

The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (AARA), which instituted the largest increase in funding for our country’s roads, bridges and mass transit systems since the development of our national highway system. The Act allocated a total of $150 billion for investment in infrastructure. The State of Louisiana received a total of $430 million with sub-allocations of $29.1 million to the New Orleans urbanized area and $19.2 million to the St. Tammany (Northshore) urbanized areas of Mandeville/Covington and Slidell. In addition, approximately $27 million was distributed to the Regional Planning Commission for transportation investments eligible under ARRA, which include: road preservation, capacity or widening projects, traffic signal system upgrades, bridge maintenance, bicycle and pedestrian infrastructure, and landscaping enhancements. Projects were identified and prioritized for ARRA funding based on the following mandated criteria:

Projects needed to be “shovel ready” and have environmental clearance or be in the advanced stages of engineering design;

projects were located in economically distressed areas;

projects created and sustained jobs by contributing to business retention and economic development;

projects enhanced community sustainability by addressing an important transportation deficiency;